


Balalaika

by RegalMisfortune



Series: Gibraltar Shenanigans [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: A Brief Shot In The Dark Of Zarya's Past, A More Serious Drabble Than My Last Two, Emotional Trainwreck probably, Everyone Outside of the First 4 Are Very Minor/Mentioned Only, Most Overwatch Characters Honorably Mentioned, No Editing I Will Die of Shame Like I Deserve, She's Finally Warming Up To The Others, Zarya Plays The Balalaika
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 14:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11106165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegalMisfortune/pseuds/RegalMisfortune
Summary: Zarya finds solace in an empty room in Gibraltar, where she can sit down and remissness on the dreary past and confusing present, and perhaps risk peeking towards a warmer future.All accompanied by the nostalgic, ancient song of her grandfather's balalaika.





	Balalaika

Gibraltar was loud.

Down in the workshops and hangar was always the sound of metal upon metal, repairs and building anew for maintenance and defense. The kitchens and recreational rooms were always being milled around by at least one other, regardless of the hour. The same went for the training room, the exterior walls, the surrounding landscape-

Zarya brought her hands up to her face, pressing palms to her eyes as a nearby explosion rumbled through her room. Why did Winston in his brilliance thought to bring on board a bunch of Junkers was beyond her. Granted, the scrawny one knew how to cook up an explosive for all occasions, but both he and his gargantuan, silent “bodyguard” were filthy, crude, half-baked rapscallions who cared not a lick about the purpose of Overwatch but only whatever offering Winston coaxed them into accepting to be here in the first place.

She wasn’t the only one who had been suspicious and reluctant of these two soot-mongers, but apparently there was something about explosions that bonded unlikely people together.

Then again, Hana was nineteen. A young soldier she may be, but teenagers and dangerous objects went hand in hand. And McCree was as much as a rebellious teenager as she was, regardless of him being almost twice her age. A very dangerous teenager. After all, who else would dress up as if they were partaking in some corny western show seriously?

Zarya heaved a sigh, dropping her hands in frustration as another explosion trembled her room. She was _tired_ , having just got back from a mission that had gone absolutely dismal. Successful, but it was a horror has soon as they stepped off the transport. All the missions she got roped into tended to follow the same trend of horribleness, but with her being one of the few with actual tactical experience on the field of battle it made sense.

Still left Reinhardt in the medbay, full of cheerfulness and boisterous jokes while Dr. Zeigler ushered her out the door after being looked over and cleared of anything other than a few scrapes and bruises.

The entirety of Overwatch at its current was in Gibraltar now- many in the rec room and the kitchens scrounging up some mid-day meal. Debriefing of the mission would happen once Reinhardt was cleared from the medbay, but Zarya had already put in her report, as brief as it was.

And now she was left with a desire to unwind in peace, but the rumbling of her room left much to be desired.

Rising from her seat on the bed, Zarya lowered her knees to the floor, reaching under the bunk to pull out an old, battered case. Without a second thought, the Russian soldier headed out of her room with the case clutched to her chest, hoping to seek out some sort of peace within the walls of the Watchpoint.

It was easy to avoid the more commonly occupied paces of the base, Zarya taking a route through the halls to avoid passing by the kitchen and the rec room, not quite wanting to be spotted by anyone carrying her case. No one knew yet that she had it aside from Winston (a pretense of her understanding that the commander of the new Overwatch would need to know her reasons why she had to leave Gibraltar and go to the nearest village), but even he did not know what she had inside other than a family heirloom she had delivered.

Zarya paused, tilting her head to gaze down both ends of the hallway. Here it was quieter, the rumbling detonations from outside undetectable on the other end of the base, and the multitude of voices from the relaxing members a near murmur to her ears.

The room she had discovered appeared to be unused space, cleaned but devoid of furniture or decoration. Perhaps at some point it had been a meeting room of sorts, but now it was devoid of any sort of use.

Relaxing her grip on the case, Zarya settled herself down against a wall, visible line of sight to the door but at enough of an angle for her to be unnoticed unless one stepped into the room. It was here that she finally breathed out a soft sigh, shoulders slumping downward as she finally had some peace to herself without prying eyes and explosions. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had some time to herself, the Siberian warfront too vital to give anyone some down time and ever since her loan to Overwatch she had been doing very little but training and missions. Hell, she had only a day’s worth of training before she had been swept up into a vital mission that cropped up. Now there were others who were newer to the team than she was, and so the friendly banter shifted from trying to include her to include the new recruits despite their… questionable backgrounds.

It suited her just fine. She was only a loan, after all. The least she became attached to the team the easier it would be to leave. She couldn’t get attached to others, even though she would protect them to her dying breath. Either they would leave or she would leave. She merely had to be strong enough to withstand it all.

Problem was, under all the muscle and past aches, Zarya had a soft heart. She couldn’t help but become attached to the quirky misfits that were Overwatch. Even the Omnics that became part of the team were… almost tolerable, and that was almost inexcusable. She hid it, buried the fondness of the different quirks of each individual of the team under disinterest and firm responsibility that she _couldn’t_ get attached, that she was only temporary and could easily be taken away at the mere whim of her actual superiors.

Getting attached only lead to heartache- she knew that.

Absently Zarya ran her fingers over the worn leather of the case resting before her, smoothing back some torn and curled edges with a gentle touch. She had it hidden away in storage for years, not since her enrollment into training for the championships. She hadn’t even seen it since the death of her grandfather, but now, when her heart was conflicted and mind restless, she needed an outlet that no amount of shooting and training could provide her.

Undoing the metal clasps, Zarya gently lifted the lid, exposing old, polished wood of a triangular base for an instrument. The repairer had done a fine job fixing it up, the previous worn and ancient piece restored back to a playable form. The smell of resin and polish made the corners of her eyes crinkle and her heart ache in nostalgia as she carefully pried the balalaika from the case and set it against a thigh. Rusty fingers plucked at the trio of strings, going through the chords to test the sound as Zarya let herself sink into her thoughts.

She had been such a small girl in her first memories of the instrument, sitting on the knee of the large figure that was her grandfather while his arms carefully curled around her to play an old folksong. She couldn’t remember much of him, other than the balding head, the thick wrinkled fingers that tickled the stings of the balalaika with expert care, and the deep huff of a chuckle. Everything else was a shroud of shadow and a vague voice softly singing to her and encouraging her to play the chords he had shown her.

Zarya’s fingers fell gradually into the remeberance of the actions, despite the years it had been since she had last touched the beautiful strings, a familiar tune of an upbeat song from her memory vibrating out through the polished wood of the balalaika.

The day she lost it all was engraved in her memories, sharp and clear as the First Omnic Crisis fell upon her tiny Siberian town. She had been naught but a little girl, not strong enough to protect her people and her family as the Omnics destroyed her home, her family.

She hadn’t been able to protect anyone. Not even herself.

It was the reason why she had begun to train her body, growing older and stronger by the years. Being eventually shuffled through the government system for orphaned children once she was pulled away from the front lines that was her hometown made her think beyond her years, desiring herself to be the one to keep all the other children from facing the same hardships. She had just been recruited into training for weightlifting when an old family friend from the tiny Siberian town, years after the Crisis, sent her a gift of a worn, familiar instrument case. The note explained that they had found it during rebuilding, and were honestly surprised to see the old balalaika in one piece after all this time. At the time, Zarya couldn’t bear to look at it, her eyes itching with memories as she quietly had it placed into storage for a time she could face up to what it brought to her.

Her failures, her inability to protect what she loved most.

Her fingers switched in pace, a slower song warbling down the strings and through the room as she changed songs, eyes almost closed as she let the old songs take her back to the cold Siberian front.

When word had come to her that the Omnics were returning to cause chaos to her hometown, Zarya never had a doubt to her next step. She was now older and stronger than any other in the world, and she would protect her people even if it killed her. She had immediately enlisted herself before ever speaking to her trainer- the man grim but understanding.

_“Punch one dead for me,”_ he had told her, the only kind thing that ever came out of his mouth. And Zarya had kept that promise.

Absently the song shifted, more lively and upbeat in the muscle memory of long ago, playing her grandfather’s favorite song that she had heard and seen so many times that she didn’t even need to see, remembering the wizened hands on her own as they guided her through the chords while she began to hum along to the tune.

The weights she had used to lift turned to that of a particle cannon, ripped free from its mount and used to great effectiveness in her hands. It had been modified accordingly, improved just for her use, and she had torn through many an Omnic with its terrifying power. Her missions always were successful, her team protected under her command. It had been what she always wanted, protecting her people with the strength she now possessed to make up for her failures as a child.

But then she had been uprooted, going from her homeland to a global scale as she was shifted from the Siberian frontlines to Overwatch. She knew that it was only temporary, and she knew not the reason why of her being here to start with. She did not question orders, but there was a bigger play here, something that was greater than the Omnics at home.

What it was, Zarya wasn’t quite sure. Perhaps it was this ‘Talon’ group that they occasionally ran into, but where did Talon and the growing Second Omnic Crisis converged was beyond her scope as of yet. But she was observant, and she would figure out the pieces eventually.

Yet that left her with the conflict currently at hand- her position within this ragtag group. She protected them, had their backs and their fronts if needed, and their antics were warming her frigid heart.

She had to be strong. Weakness got people killed. She couldn’t be weak. Not anymore.

But no matter how she tried to keep everyone at arm’s length, she couldn’t help but snort at Genji’s jokes, exasperate over McCree’s entire wardrobe, enjoy sitting in peace with Hanzo while watching the others make fools of themselves, amused into picking up Reinhardt and hold him over her head just because Hana said she couldn’t, fond of Lena’s blipping about from one place to another with the bright cheer on her face, grateful of Winston’s observational skills serving him well enough to explain things to her in easier detail when she dared not to explain that many of the more fancier English words failed to make sense to her, admire Dr. Ziegler’s fierceness when it came to the welfare of her team, even grudgingly accepting Bastion and Zenyatta’s peacefulness, regardless of their Omnic status.

They were more like a ragtag _family_ than a team of heroes, luring in those with no other place to go or with aspirations of world protection overriding their own survival. They cared for each other, for their job, for the world, and they would do what they could to protect the world from itself, even if the world had turned their backs on them years ago.

And this was why Zarya finally brought herself to face her own fears, having the old family balalaika fixed and returned to her, her fingers curling in growing ease across the three strings.

Perhaps she had been too weak to save her blood family, but she had been a child. Now, she was older, stronger, and _will_ protect her newer, stranger family. Her grandfather would’ve smiled and ruffled her hair and told her that she was just like her mother. She was sure of it.

_Perhaps she finally had found what she hadn’t known she was looking for._

The chord finally came to a gentle rest, her fingers uncurling from the neck of the balalaika to rub at her eyes. She hadn’t realized she had started to cry, so wrapped up in her thoughts and memories that it just came all pouring out of her heart and soul. She knew that her music wasn’t up to par with the memories of her grandfather, but she could see his kind smile behind her eyelids, warm and soothing as hot chocolate in the dead of winter.

“Zarya?”

The soft voice in front of her made her lift her head, blinking back the blur of her vision as she took in her surroundings. She had been so absorbed into herself that she hadn’t realized the visitors that had went to find the source of the music and had lingered just outside the door or inside the room close to the walls, giving her the space she needed. Lena had been the one to creep closer, unusually slow instead of her usual popping in and out, kneeling on the floor just a few feet ahead of the soldier.

“Сожалею,” Zarya murmured, hastily scrubbing at the tracks of tears with the back of her hand, mentally scolding herself for not paying attention and letting her guard down so readily. But with it stripped away, she was struggling to put it back over her, yet the gentle smile from the British pilot wasn’t pitying or scathing, but warm and almost understanding.

“It’s okay, love,” Lena replied, taking the moment to get closer to pat the Russian’s knee. “You play lovely music.”

At that the others voiced in their own opinions, either with silent nods or vocal praise. The only one who didn’t was Junkrat, covered in soot and grime and brows scrunched together in visible confusion.

“What’s with the funky guitar?”

Zarya half laughed, half hiccupped, a nostalgic smile creeping across her face.

“It’s a balalaika,” she explained, and with the gentle coaxing of the others who had begun to pile into the room, she let herself rely on their comfort as she began to open up and explain softly the history behind the strange triangular instrument, playing a few chords for them at their behest while laughing along as McCree ran to grab his own acoustic guitar and play a duet of songs even she did not know but made up on the spot, eyes crinkling with visible mirth.

Grandfather would’ve been proud of how far she had come; she was sure of it now.

**Author's Note:**

> Сожалею: Sorry (At least according to Google Translate).


End file.
